Various approaches have been proposed for monitoring, simulating, or testing web sites. However, some of these approaches address substantially different problems (e.g. problems of simulation and hypothetical phenomena), and thus are significantly different from the present invention. Other examples include services available from vendors such as Atesto Technologies Inc., Keynote Systems, and Mercury Interactive Corporation. These services may involve a script that runs on a probe computer. The approaches mentioned above do not necessarily allow some useful comparisons.
It is very useful to measure the performance of an application, and to measure performance against target values. For example, the application being evaluated may be a web site, web service, or another application accessible to a number of users via a network. Concerning two or more such applications, it is very useful to compare numerical measures. There may be practical difficulties in defining useful performance targets, or comparing numerical measures. Thus there is a need for systems and methods that solve problems related to performance targets and comparison.